What do you believe regarding the sound of passive components?

[martin manning]

Informal opinion survey: What do you believe regarding the effect resistors and capacitors have on sound aside from their value in Ohms or Farads?
Check the box if you believe there is an audible difference.
Note that "audible difference" includes noise level as well as timbre.
Even if you don't think any of these factors influence the sound, please check the "I participated" box.

[WhopperPlate]

*what have you perceived

[ViperDoc]

I swapped a resistor out of my Express while trying different grid leak values and even returned to the original value, same factory batch. I wish I never changed it. I was trying to get more of what I knew I heard, and I lost it somehow and never got it back. I tried several others to no avail. Sadface. Everything makes a difference.

[bepone]

why is so important other peoples opinion when everyone can try by himself and find answer? on well known amplifier..it is easy and fast..

i dont understand this poll, questioning every day.. imo looks like people are very lazy and dont want to spend 5 min to change few resistors and caps, it is easier to spend few years of reading forums and other opinions.. and then form their own?

im getting formed psihological structure about this kind of wandering people.. also about their involement in this hobby/life

[martin manning]

This is off to a good start, but this thread has many more views than participants at this point. AFAIK it's anonymous.

Note that if you don't think any of this matters, please consider ticking the "I participated" box to record your opinion.

[bepone]

i have strong and real opinion i dont need any poll to express what i think .

or "beleive". 'beleive'? like not existing. is it maybe spiritual thing?

[bepone]

lets pray to tube gods before playing some amps, maybe we will hear better.

[martin manning]

why is so important other peoples opinion when everyone can try by himself and find answer? on well known amplifier..it is easy and fast..

i dont understand this poll, questioning every day.. imo looks like people are very lazy and dont want to spend 5 min to change few resistors and caps, it is easier to spend few years of reading forums and other opinions.. and then form their own? :lol: :lol:

im getting formed psihological structure about this kind of wandering people.. also about their involement in this hobby/life

It doesn't matter if you have never tried looking for the sound effects of component brand or type substitutions, or spent hours doing it. You can still have an opinion on whether it makes any difference.

[GAStan]

I selected Resistors of different materials and Capacitors of different dielectric material. I have first hand changed these and noticed a difference.

The other four I do not have first hand experience so cannt say one way or the other.

This poll seems to assume one has first hand experience.

[martin manning]

Not necessarily. We have all heard people say things like 'it was a night and day difference when I changed this one part from an Acme to an Ajax.' I'm trying to find out, and maybe others are curious too, how much of that has become ingrained and accepted as fact in the community. Thanks for participating :^)

[Reeltarded]

Everything is more similar since I went deaf.

Things that matter are mostly metal, then everything else. Non-polarized cap direction. We know how to make them howl. that at least suggest that something in these positions can have a major effect on how the amp plays for at least two reasons right there.I did this grounded spatula thing that made me put a metal plate close to the back of the board to induce an electron hell storm at the junction of the eq.. It was on a spring screw off the chassis. It wasn't safe. lol I couldn't see it operate. I counted turns.. "I do not feel lucky.. punk".. I use aluminum chassis now. I like to use tall stand-offs.

Resistors though.. plate composition and grid stoppers..leaks less so.. absolutely changes when changing composition in most power strings.. But output transformers are so much of the outcome it is hard to get a baseline on many positions of little bits.

I'll argue about all this crap like I know anything if you guys keep the Latin to a minimus.

To sort of point at Martin's last question, except for UL, every hi-fi thing I ever did to a guitar amp RULED, and in publications going back to the 60s say we aren't hi-fi guys. Trash all all that stupidity. Try everything. (except UL) (gross)

And I don't make many amps with a clean sound.. so..

[Phil_S]

At my age (don't want to say exactly, but into retirement years) I don't believe my hearing is good enough to perceive much of a difference. I "participated" without an opinion. I'll suggest the time constant (is that the correct term?) on caps probably has more influence than many other factors. I'll also mention that a child can easily hear 20KHz. By the time a person is 20-something, upper end probably declines to 15KHz +/- a few KHz. At my age, I'll say my hearing is probably better than average with an upper end around 11KHz. When you see an audiologist, they only test up to about 8KHz because that is the typical upper end of human speech. That's a long winded way of suggesting that a group of 18 year olds might answer this survey very differently than a group of 60 year olds.

[martin manning]

That's a valid point Phil, thanks for bringing it up. And setting age aside, there is still variation in hearing ability. If you have a signal generator app on your phone and a good pair of headphones you can get a good idea of where your high frequency hearing tails off.

[johnnyreece]

Got a story that seems like it might fit here...had a jam at my house a while a back, and a bass player I respect was using my rig. He kept twiddling the EQ until he had it exactly how he wanted. The problem? The active EQ wasn't turned on...He was *certain* he'd dialed it in, though! Once I pushed the button, there was absolutely a change in tone! I'm not saying some folks here aren't hearing differences; just saying that there are definitely some out there who only *think* they do.

[mhuss]

I think that in a controlled environment, using people with excellent hearing, you might detect some subtle differences.

I would only trust double-blind tests, as humans are all too easily fooled (including themselves). I've caught myself thinking I heard a difference when adjusting the control on the wrong track, lol/sigh!

When playing live in a band situation or in a dense recording, good luck!